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I urgently need some advice regarding a divorce and would be grateful for some help.
My husband of 13 years has subjected me to intermittent bouts of abuse over the years, culminating in my attending a Domestic Violence course in 2018. He hasn't been physically violent towards me or our children, but is verbally aggressive, controlling and unreasonable, and has upset both me and the children on multiple occasions. He has put the children in traumatic and potentially dangerous situations more than once, resulting in my son's schools being notified (whereupon he was given counselling). My husband is not capable of looking after the children on a daily basis as he has never been involved in their daily care routines. He has been signed off work for ill health for nearly two years and is barely capable of looking after himself. Throughout the marriage, he would only allow me to have sex with him 5 times, stopping all together 7 years ago, and he repeatedly refused to discuss it.
To cut a very long story short, after years of suffering his abusive behaviour and enforced celibacy, I recently embarked on an affair but I stupidly got found out a few weeks into it. Naturally my husband is not best pleased - he's told me he's going to divorce me and wants me to move out within a week.
Because of his controlling nature, he would not allow my name to go on the title deeds to the house when we moved here - he owns it 50/50 with his mother (who's 94 and lives with us). He also told me last night that if I go out, he will also go out, thereby leaving the children (age 11 and 13) unattended, so he's blackmailing me. He's promised not to lay a finger on me, but he's told me he's going to make my life hell (which I believe, because I know how abusive he can be) and, when he can bring himself to talk to me, he shouts me down by repeatedly calling me a liar. He's also demanding a DNA test on the children, who are definitely his as I have been fully loyal up til a month ago.
I would be grateful if someone could offer me a bit of advice as soon as possible. I gave up my job to raise our children so I have no income and hardly any savings, I have no family and nowhere to go. Although he hasn't said he'd do this yet, I strongly suspect he's going to cease giving me any housekeeping (he controls all the money, without negotiation). I'm also seriously concerned for the childrens' wellbeing if I'm forced out as I've had to be a buffer between them and his aggression/unreasonable behaviour over the years. They go back to school tomorrow after the half-term and, when they're out, I really do not know what I am going to be threatened with and I need to know where I stand.
Help!!
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